


the world on the edge of eternity

by darthpumpkinspice



Series: fighting towards a blood-stained peace [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Elements of Horror, Gen, Sith Rituals, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force Is Weird, Ziost (Star Wars), featuring Rook Kast's inferiority complex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-17
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:27:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25961323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthpumpkinspice/pseuds/darthpumpkinspice
Summary: In his pursuit of power, Darth Maul journeys to the old Sith world of Ziost, taking the newly appointed Mand'alor, Rook Kast, along with him. But the force flows strangely on the planet, and something seems to be lurking in the dark....
Relationships: Rook Kast & Darth Maul, Rook Kast & Gar Saxon
Series: fighting towards a blood-stained peace [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838950
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	the world on the edge of eternity

**Author's Note:**

> soooo the Savage/Satine & Latts fic ended up getting delayed - I'm trying to figure out how I want to actually write that, and it's been slow going. fortunately, i ended up playing with this fic as i was figuring the other one out, so here it is, way ahead of schedule! 
> 
> so just to clear up some details- this story is set ~3.5 years after the rise of the empire, and due Mandalore being an active part of the rebellion, and Tarkin dying early on, the conflicts between the rebels and the empire are closer to the separatists v republic battles in the Clone Wars. The Empire is still very much the dominant power in the galaxy, but the Rebellion has more of a heads start in its resistance then it did in canon
> 
> and THIS fic is choosing to take advantage of the new Disney clean-slate to basically pick and choose some elements i liked from the EU and incorporate them here!
> 
> i really hope ya'll enjoy my attempt to play around with some pseduo-horror and weird force stuff! the next 2 fics in the series will be much more grounded, I promise, but I wanted to just go wild and have fun with this one :D

It is a uniquely pleasant day when Mand’alor returns to his people.

It is, like the most satisfying days, a day coming off the heel of a series of much more _unpleasant_ days. Rook had spent the past few weeks slogging through the mind-numbing tedium of overseeing the least interesting aspect of warfare – a siege. But this morning had started off well- she’d been summoned to the war-room, leaving behind a well-muscled Rattataki from the Spar clan to keep her bed warm, and had finally received good news. The long-awaited message had finally arrived- Jedha had surrendered to her Mandalorian forces. At long last, the desert moon was theirs: a double victory, belonging both to her people as well as their allies in the Rebellion. She had negotiated with Bail Organa about the distribution of spoils, and although those discussions had been arduous, Mandalore was now promised the bulk of kyber crystals mined on the world, while the Rebellion had requested they receive the captured Imperial occupiers as prisoners.

Rook had been happy enough to let Organa deal with the Imperials, and privately she harbored doubts that any of them were intelligent enough to prove useful sources of information. Let the Rebellion interrogators try and squeeze whatever diluted secrets they could from those fascist fools for all she cared.

The buzz of victory had put a spring in her step the rest of the morning, and her afternoon had been buoyed by the anticipation of receiving the first wave of ships back from Jedha, carrying her soldiers and their rightfully conquered loot. She had only made one request of her troops – to bring her back a bottle of Jedha liquor. Nothing in the galaxy tasted as sweet as plundered booze.

She found herself wandering through one of Satine’s old gardens in the scant free time she had between the briefing and the estimated return of her soldiers, breathing in the scents of exotic, imported flora. None of these flowers would grow on Mandalore naturally, the only things that could flourish on their harsh soil were tough, bitter little plants that needed only the barest offerings of water to survive. _These_ flowers, by contrast, had proved an absolute nightmare to maintain. They withered and died if they were given too little, and drowned just as easily if they were given too much. Finding the balance between neglect and excess was an ongoing struggle- to the point where she had started to appoint garden-duty as a punishment for disobedient troops.

Originally, Rook had considered leaving their fates up to nature and the gods: in essence, a death sentence for these fragile blossoms. But even Rook, who had never been possessed of much of an eye for beauty, could find something to admire in the gardens. It was certainly lovely, albeit in a sheltered, tamed sort of way, hosting spiraling multi-colored vines, white-barked trees shimmering with iridescent leaves, and orchids with bright petals crawling towards the sun, all arranged in a very deliberately crafted wildness. So in the end, she decided to preserve them.

She’s visited often in the past few months, usually to meditate under the shade of the twisting, gnarled kuvara tree in the center of garden. As she often has, she removes her helmet and rests between the roots of the tree, breathing in deeply and inhaling the scent of wood as it mingles with the fragrance of a thousand different plants in full bloom. At the edge of the garden, she spies a Mandalorian tending to a rose-bush with a weary look on their face. She recognizes the soldier – their commanding officer had accused them of minor insubordination, and Rook had sentenced them to this fate for a term of six weeks. They spot her watching them, and flash a wide grin. “Mand’alor!”

It takes Rook an embarrassingly long moment before she realizes that they’re referring to _her_. She clears her throat, feeling suddenly awkward, and waves back in greeting. Seemingly satisfied with having received a measure of her regard, the soldier turns back to their task, now whistling tunelessly.

She is just beginning to settle in, when her communicator starts to vibrate incessantly. She’s just about to grab it to find out what this _new_ dilemma is, when she sees it: a streak of black in the southeast, racing across the skyline like the spill of ink down parchment. The ship cuts its way towards the palace with a smooth, knife-like precision, and Rook would recognize that craft anywhere. Finally, after almost a year away, their Mand’alor has returned. Her hand moves down to the weapon at her side, squeezing around it until the ridges of the hilt dig painfully into her palm. After too long separated from him, it will be good to return this to its rightful owner, she thinks. 

* * *

Rook finds Mand’alor’s ship docked in one of the private hangers, and she waits for him to disembark, her hands clasped tightly behind her back. When Maul had left, a part of her had feared he might never set foot on Mandalore again. The darksaber seems to burn against her hip, as if longing to be in Maul’s possession once again.

The front hatch of the ship opens, and the boarding ramp unfurls from it like a tongue lolling out of a mouth. After a pause that feels entirely too long, Darth Maul exits his fighter. He is much the same as she remembers: his eyes as brilliantly yellow as ever, his tattoos still fierce and proud against his blood-bright skin. The weapon on his belt is the only thing she can clearly tell is _new_ – it is a lightsaber, made of a tempered silver that resembles beskar, the hilt longer than his previous blade’s had been. A double-sided saber, like Savage’s, if she had to wager a guess.

He sweeps towards her, moving with the same lithe, predator grace she remembers. “Kast,” he purrs. “The very warrior I came here to see. I had hoped it would be you who would greet me.”

She bows deeply to him, and then pulls the darksaber from the magnetic hook attaching it to her belt. It disconnects in her hand, and she raises her gaze as she stretches it out towards him. “It is good to see you returned to us, Mand’alor,” she says. “Your throne and sword are yours again, as promised.”

She had expected for him to show some approval at this demonstration of her loyalty, but she is distressed to see instead as disappointment briefly ripples across his features.

“You misunderstand me,” he tells her. “I have no intention of reclaiming the throne. My business here is not related to Mandalore. And as I told you when I gave you that blade, Kast, _you_ are Mand’alor now.” 

She sucks in air through her teeth, pushing back her own disappointment and resisting the impulse to scowl. “What would you like me to call you, if not Mand’alor?” she asks stiffly.

“ _Lord_ works just fine, Kast,” Maul says smoothly. There is the faintest shimmer of amusement in the depths of his jungle-cat eyes, there and gone in less than a heartbeat.

Rook, unsure if he’s joking, decides to take the safe option and say nothing at all. She nods silently, her finger twitching over the hilt of the darksaber as she does. She has never quite gotten used to its presence: there is still something strange and foreign about it, and unlike her other weapons she can acutely _feel_ the darksaber at all times as it dangles awkwardly from her utility belt. She has trained with it only inasmuch as to become adequately competent in its handling; if the darksaber wasn’t such an important unifying symbol to her people, Rook would’ve put the thing into a beskar safe and dropped it into an armory long ago. She makes the mistake of glancing down at the thing, and the hilt shines coldly and tauntingly under the overhead fluorescents. It looks distressingly out of place against her armor; she does not wear it as naturally as Maul did, or even Vizsla.

Maul follows her gaze, and gives his darksaber an appreciative look. “We should duel sometime,” he suggests, smiling unpleasantly. “I’m interested to see how your skills with the blade have advanced.”

 _This_ Rook decides, is _not_ a conversation she wants to entertain. “My lord,” she says through gritted teeth, “weren’t you going to mention your reason for this visit?”

Maul stretches leisurely, evidently in no particular rush to provide Rook with answers. She finds herself thinking, reluctantly, that perhaps Maul’s self-imposed exile from Mandalore may have been somewhat beneficial – he looks as relaxed as she’s ever seen him, reminding her, oddly, of a tourist freshly returned from a tropical vacation. She finds herself scowling again, and has to rearrange her expression back into a semblance of neutrality.

Maul’s eyes brighten at the sight of her distress, but mercifully, he decides to throw her a bone. “Very well,” the Sith says, “I shall be blunt. Over the last several months, my dreams have been filled with visions of a shadowed world, strong in the force. I have consulted with Mother Talzin and her witches, and I believe I have traced the source of the visions to a planet called Ziost. There is a power awaiting me there, Kast, and I intend to seize it for myself before the Empire can find it.”

“Ziost,” she repeats blankly, uncomprehendingly. It means nothing to her- a meaningless word describing an irrelevant world.

“A Sith planet,” Maul explains. “Once the source of a great ritual that, according to legend, altered the force itself on the planet. It has been uninhabited since the fall of the old Sith Empire.” 

“Why me?” Rook asks doubtfully, skimming over the concept of ‘ritually-altered Sith world’ entirely. If Maul is disappointed by her lack of curiosity, he chooses not to comment on it. She continues, “I would imagine Savage or Saxon would be the more natural choices for a companion.”

Maul hesitates for a moment. “My brother,” he says slowly, “would certainly fall back into the role of dutiful apprentice, if I demanded it of him. And Saxon has never shied away from any task I have presented him with.” Something unreadable dances across his expression. “But they are both immersed in their own responsibilities. And you….” He pauses again, considering her. “A leader should stay close to her people, it is true. But she should also take care that she remembers how to operate without them, as well. The Mandalorians follow you out of respect for your strength, Kast. Make sure that your edge does not dull on the throne. How long has it been since you left the Mandalore sector?”

“It has been many months,” she admits. It is the unfortunate reality of leadership she was unable to fully prepare for: while her people wage campaigns on behalf of themselves and their allies in the Rebellion, _she_ has spent most of the last eight months coordinating the battles from Sundari. It has been too long since she has been to the front-lines, too long since her armor has been bloodied in genuine combat.

“Then come with me,” Maul urges. His eyes are alight with a familiar, obsessive fire, an expression she might describe as ‘borderline deranged’ on anyone else. But _this_ is her Mand’alor, the man who saved her people from the cultural genocide attempted by the pacifistic, New Mandalorian regime, and then freed them again from the weakness and short-sightedness of Vizsla. He is the man who led them against the tyranny of the Empire, who insured their world would not have to suffer under the Imperial yoke. He may reject the title of Mand’alor, but he is still Rook’s king, so she looks into his eyes and sees only the promise of victory.

“I will accompany you,” she pledges. “I am your servant, as always.”

Again, she catches the barest flicker of disappointment in his gaze before it disappears. Before she can think much of it, he is speaking again. “I am pleased,” he tells her. “Make what arrangements you must, and then meet me on my ship.”

* * *

It is late in the evening when goes back to her quarters to retrieve her spare power packs. Her room is dark and quiet when she returns, and the bed is empty, the Spar warrior apparently having decided to cut his losses after almost a full day without a word from her. She can’t bring herself to blame him. She had been distracted with the siege in the morning then distracted with Maul after that, and the past few hours she’d been forced to make frantic arrangements to have her second assume command in her absence.

The sheets are still a mess, and on habit, Rook moves to quickly make the bed, unable to abide the idea of leaving her room in any state of visible disarray. She casts a quick glance around it, but everything else is exactly how she left it- her quarterstaff leans beside her window, and the scant few war trophies she’s collected since the fall of the Republic are all carefully displayed in their intended positions. Her lips twist in a small smile. Mandalore might go to complete shit without her, but at least her room will be pristine when she returns.

She departs her room, intending to reunite with Maul in the hanger, but she doesn’t get more than a few paces down the hall when a shadow peels itself off the wall to block her passage. Rook takes another step forward, until the overhead light casts the figure into sharp relief. She rolls her eyes, unsurprised. “Mavrix. You really shouldn’t ambush your commander.”

Her second-in-command makes a face at that, not bothering to look remotely apologetic. “It seemed like the only way I could get ahold of you before you left.”

“Well, here I am,” Rook grumbles, “what can I help you with?”

It shouldn’t be possible, but his expression is even more dour than usual. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

Rook blinks, considering. She doesn’t want to admit she’s not actually _sure_ – she had made a point to ask Maul, but he had been purposefully vague, making some cryptic statements about destiny and fate and power, but unfortunately nothing about the specific logistics of their journey. “Shouldn’t be longer than a week or two,” she says, shooting off a quick prayer to the gods that will indeed be the case. “At most. If something urgent comes up, you have my holo-frequency.”

“It is a shame you have to leave now,” he says. “You, of all of us, are the most deserving of the first sample of Jedha’s riches. The celebration will not be the same without our Mand’alor present.”

Rook gives him a dubious look, not entirely convinced Mavrix is _capable_ of even fully understanding the meaning of the word ‘celebration’, let alone truly partaking in all one entails. Her recollection is certainly imperfect, the memories blurred from the alcohol imbibed and the occasional spice consumed, but in the celebrations they’ve been to together, Rook doesn’t think she’s ever seen Mavrix do more than stare in horrified disgust as his fellow Mandalorians embarrass themselves with drunken antics and the occasional bout of vomiting.

Well, at any rate, if Mavrix has managed to convince himself he’s somehow the life of the party, it’s not her place to disillusion him of that. “I trust you,” she tells him. “Keep this place running until I return.”

At this point in the conversation, Mavrix looks practically despondent. She wonders, briefly, if she looked as miserable as Mavrix when Maul passed the mantle of leadership to her almost a year ago. She hopes not, as it’s a rather pathetic sight to behold; Mavrix resembles, in this moment, a tooka-kit that’s just been slapped across the snout. She gives him a quick, comforting pat on the arm. “Don’t worry,” she assures him. “I’ll be back soon.” 

“Safe travels, Mand’alor,” he says at last. “May you possess the strength to vanquish all of your enemies.”

“My strength for Mandalore,” she murmurs in response. “I will return triumphant.” Triumphant against _what_ she is still not entirely sure, but where Lord Maul is concerned, there is _usually_ some sort of foe involved, some nemesis to battle. She is not eager to leave, but she feels her blood start to buzz in anticipation at the thought of fighting at her lord’s side. It has been too long since they have made war together.

Mavrix inclines his head to her. “Ret’urcye mhi.”

“Ret’urcye mhi,” she echoes.

* * *

She finds Maul is in the hanger when she arrives, sprawled out on the still-extended boarding ramp, seemingly fixated on the datapad held between his hands. “You’re later than expected,” he drawls as she approaches, not looking up from his reading. “No complications, I hope?”

“My second-in-command wasn’t thrilled to see me leave,” she answers, drawing to a stop in front of him.

He smirks at that remark but continues to read, his finger flicking across the datapad and summoning what looks like – from her limited view of the device’s readout - a block of equations. Hyper-route computations, possibly, although why he wouldn’t just leave those calculations to his ship’s mainframe is a mystery to her. She folds her arms across her chest. “If I’ve kept us waiting then I’m sure you’re eager to depart, my lord.”

He must surely be taking some undue pleasure in avoiding her gaze, perhaps as a petty punishment for her initial tardiness, for the smirk playing across his lips has broadened into a full grin, even as he continues to ignore her in favor of his datapad and whatever infernal mathematics are being reviewed on it. “So impatient,” he hums. “Dearest Kast, I assure you I will not be stealing you away from this delightful world for an unreasonable amount of time. So there’s really….” With a lazy, deliberate slowness, he flicks his forefinger across the readout again, dismissing the old equations in favor of a new set. “…no rush.”

Rook lets out an unsubtle, long-suffering sigh. Not something she would’ve dared to do, back when Maul had first claimed Mandalore and the darksaber as his own, but they have worked together closely for years now, fighting side-by-side against mutual enemies, and perhaps that – coupled with his absence and his insistence that he no longer be referred to by his old title – has made her grow bold.

 _Finally,_ Maul deigns to glance back up at her. “Very well, then,” he says, poorly repressed amusement laced through his words. “If you _really_ are so eager, I suppose I could oblige.” He deactivates the datapad and rises to his feet, and with a gesture the hatch of his ship dilates open, exposing the inside of the vessel. “After you.”

This will be the first time she’s actually been _inside_ Maul’s personal ship, and she steps in, curious to see how it compares to her expectations. It’s warmer than she would have guessed – warmer than Sundari standard – and she’s grateful for the thermal regulators threaded throughout her bodysuit and armor. The interior is just as sleek and militarized as the exterior, all smooth black lines and chrome accents, with a floor that’s polished to the point of being practically mirrored. She spies three closed doors along the corridor – likely connecting to refreshers and private quarters, and a narrow ladder that drops to a gently humming subsection of the ship that houses its engine. Past that, the corridor opens into a wider area that looks marginally more lived-in; there are chairs grouped around a holo-table cluttered with flimsiplast of star-charts and alien runes. There is also a pyramidal, palm-sized object resting in the center of the table, which would almost be innocuous if not for its prominent position and the faint glow emanating from within its crystalline structure. It pulses warmly at her regard, as if noticing her, and she realizes she’s no longer standing by the entrance of the ship, but she’s right in front of the object.... It pulses again, more insistent, and her hand stretches out of its own accord, reaching….

But before she can take it, Maul’s hand is on her shoulder, pulling her back and snapping her out of her reverie. She shakes her head, and looks down at the object again. It no longer looks quite as appealing or as luminous as before, and something murky seems to churn within it. “What _is_ that thing?” she asks Maul curiously. She feels the distant nag of a primitive discomfort as she continues to stare at the object, but as it stands she is currently too confused to be genuinely afraid of it.

“ _That,_ ” Maul says, “is a holocron of, I suspect, considerable power. I found it in the Dromuund system, not long after I left Mandalore to explore the galaxy.” He frowns down at it as if it has personally displeased him. “It would be more _useful_ if I could get it to _work_ … but that is a problem for another day.” He picks it up, rotating it delicately for closer inspection, before giving up with a frustrated sigh. “Useless thing.” With an all-too-casual motion, he chucks it into one of the chairs, and it lands rather unceremoniously on top of a crumpled black robe. He turns back to Rook, and gestures vaguely at her. “Make yourself comfortable while I initiate the jump into hyperspace.”

Rook hesitates, hovering between the table and the closest chair. “My lord,” she attempts, “Perhaps we could discuss the particulars of the mission, before we leave Mandalore?”

“Mm,” Maul says, not bothering to feign any interest in her suggestion. “I think not.”

He moves to the furthest end of the room, activating a panel embedded in the wall and opening an entrance to a cramped cockpit. He slides into the pilot’s seat and silently begins to commence the departure procedures. The door seals shut behind him, and sullenly, Rook sits down in the chair, dropping her helmet onto the holo-table and glowering at the nearest flimsi – one detailing, apparently, the time-space distortions caused by gravity wells. She’s gotten entirely too used to people following her orders without protest in the past several months, she’d started to forget how much undue pleasure Maul takes in being obstinate for the sake of it. Her feet vibrate in her boots as the engines buried underneath activate with a high-pitched, electrical whine – Maul is certainly not wasting any time here. She raps her finger against her helmet, feeling suddenly foolish: the rush of choosing, _recklessly_ , to accompany Maul on his quest ( _whatever_ it is) has started to dissipate, and in the absence she’s beginning to feel the first stirrings of doubt. She wonders if the reason Maul seems so determined to keep her in the dark until she has nowhere left to go but the cold expanse of hyperspace is owed to more than just his usual cryptic stubbornness. Maul’s ship lifts off from the hanger, and Rook’s stomach churns with uncertainty in the same instant the ship launches itself into sub-lightspeed – an unhappy combination. She’s never quite gotten used to the unique rigors of interstellar travel – she’s a boots-on-the-ground grunt at heart, not a natural pilot. The ship lurches briefly as it escapes Mandalore’s gravity, and Rook squeezes her hand into a tight fist. Her mouth fills with saliva, and she swallows quickly before the bile can start to rise.

It is not until they have slid into the smoothness of hyperspace that Rook allows herself to fully relax. But, judging by the odd look Maul gives her when he returns from the cockpits, she’s sure her face is still a sickly, drained white. “You look horrible,” he says in a mild tone, as if they are discussing Naboo weather patterns.

“I’ll survive,” she replies curtly.

He shrugs. “Tea?” At her reluctance, he continues, “high quality, I assure you. I had it shipped in on special order from Voss, around two years ago. I try to save it for special occasions.”

“Sure,” Rook allows. She’s always preferred the comforting bitterness of caf to tea, but she supposes there’s no harm in venturing outside her normal preferences. She should probably get used to that idea too – after all, this entire adventure is already pushing the thresholds of her _normal preferences_.

Maul looks satisfied by her acquiescence. “Give me a few minutes to brew it,” he says. “And _do_ make yourself comfortable in the meanwhile.” Coming from him, the words sound more akin to a threat than an overture of hospitality.

Maul returns not long after, bringing with him two steaming cups full of a deep green liquid. He hands her one, and she accepts, her gloves heating from the warmth oozing from the ceramic. The tea within swirls gently, and she inhales, breathing in an earthy scent that sinks pleasantly into her muscles.

Maul moves to sit across from her, and then pauses. “I – ah-.” He hesitates, and then chuckles to himself.

“What?” Rook asks, amused.

“I was going to ask you if you wanted sugar,” he says wryly, settling himself into the chair. “But then I remembered I know you better than that.”

A memory occurs to her, and Rook lets out a particularly undignified snort. “You know that time,” she starts, struggling to hold back her laughter. “About a year and a half ago? When Saxon visited to help us liberate that colony on Manaan?”

Maul’s eyes gleam. “Of course.”

Something that sounds horrifyingly similar to a giggle briefly escapes her. She takes a moment to steady herself before continuing, “And when the village wanted to thank us? They prepared that ceremonial tea that tasted like ass… and Saxon dumped a good cup of sugar into his to help with the taste….”

“And promptly vomited all over the table when he had his next sip,” Maul says, completing the story in a voice light with reminiscence. “I recall that quite clearly. It very nearly became a diplomatic incident.”

Rook cackles, remembering how Saxon’s face had looked the instant he’d realized he’d made a terrible mistake. “Did we ever find out what that was?” she asks. “It certainly wasn’t sugar.”

“Salt of some kind, I assume,” Maul replies. “But most likely mixed with another local spice variant.”

“Not his smartest move, to just pour it in without checking,” Rook comments. “But certainly not his dumbest either.” She laughs again, and then takes the first, tentative sip of her tea. She’s never had a particularly refined palate – a blessing when it comes to sustaining herself on identical MRE’s on month-long campaigns, but a hindrance when trying to appreciate more luxurious food or drink. She wagers a guess that the tea is probably good, but while she doesn’t find the taste _objectionable,_ she’d be lying if she noticed anything special about the flavor. She forces down another few swallows to seem polite before placing the cup on the table beside her helmet. “My lord,” she says. “I would like to know what I will be walking into on Ziost. Can you brief me on the situation?”

Maul does not answer her question directly. Instead he takes his own sip of the tea and gives her a measuring look. “What do you know about the Sith Lords of old?” His voice is too crisp to be described as _curious,_ and there’s a dangerously playful quality to it that makes her feel like she’s being tested.

She chews on the inside of her cheek, stalling. Truthfully, she’ never been much of a history buff. Her formal education was truncated by the arrival of Pre Vizsla sweeping into her life with his dreams of glory and Mandalorian ascendancy. Death Watch itself was uninterested in teaching her anything unrelated to the golden age of Mandalore; it’s not like ancient Sith Lords were an elective course they were offering.

“Well, there’s Revan,” she says cautiously. Maul watches her over the rim of his cup and takes another delicate sip of his drink, his expression betraying absolutely nothing. She feels a bit like a child having to recite a lesson as she goes on, “he was the Sith that made war with my people, before recruiting us into his army. There are still cults in his honor scattered among the Mandalore sector.” Many years ago, on a lark, she had visited one of Revan’s shrines with Saxon and Ursa Wren. It had been an intriguing experience.

Maul waves his hand dismissively. “Ah, yes, Revan. The infamous Jedi-turned-Sith. Everyone knows his legend.”

Rook folds her arms across her chest and frowns. “I did not know he was a Jedi,” she says, doubtful.

A fleeting smile ghosts across Maul’s lips. “That is fitting. A man’s past should only be prologue, not define him.” He reclines back in his chair, and raises a brow in Rook’s direction. “But Revan was… a singular being. I meant Sith Lords like Naga Sadow, Tenebrae, Exar Kun.”

“I am not familiar with any of those names,” she admits.

“I thought that might be the case,” Maul says. He scowls at nothing in particular. “Although, it would’ve made it simpler, if you knew more of those myths. I should’ve taken you to Korriban, back when you were still in my service.”

“I still am in your service, my lord,” Rook insists.

Maul chooses not to respond to that. Instead he merely says, “Back before my order was reformed into what it is now, the Sith were mighty, and numerous. Their empires spread across the galaxy, and for thousands of years my predecessors ruled countless worlds, collected ancient knowledge, and practiced dark sorcery.” His expression twists, and he glares at the holocron still nestled in his robes on the empty chair. “Unfortunately, much of that old wisdom was lost entirely. The best hope of rediscovering it is to either find the Sith’s remaining reliquaries of knowledge-” another dirty look at the holocron “- or study the sites of their greatest rituals, as many of those places are still alive with dark energy.”

“And Ziost is one such place?” Rook guesses, thinking back to their previous conversation on Sundari.

Maul nods. “My old master claimed it was ravaged by a Sith Lord nearing the end of his life whp was growing desperate to stave off death. He warped the very fabric of the force on Ziost in a failed bid to achieve immortality. The world was rendered sterile – the soil turned sour, and any inhabitants left behind after the evacuations quickly perished.” He shrugs. “Hyperbole mixed with truth, I am sure. I had not given the planet much thought since I first heard about it – in truth, there are many worlds that were blighted by the Sith over the centuries.”

“But your… dreams… have called you to this one?” She has never been entirely clear on the nuances of the force or the multitude of strange powers it can bestow, and she understands the concept of force dreams least of all. Rook herself is lucky if she remembers her own dreams upon waking.

“I do not blame you for your confusion,” Maul says smoothly. “But do not presume to doubt me. I have had visions these past months, and with the help of Mother Talzin and the sisters, I am now certain that I am being called to Ziost.”

“Called?” Rook asks. His attempt at an explanation was not particularly insightful, and if anything, she is now even more bewildered than before. “Called for what purpose?”

Maul is beginning to look irritated by the barrage of questions. “Not called for a purpose in the way you might think,” he says tightly. “But called by the force itself. There is a power there, and it belongs to _me_.”

“Then I will help you secure it,” Rook says, deciding that she doesn’t particularly care about the subtle will of the force or whatever occult nonsense is responsible for her lord’s disturbed sleep. She’s not a seer or a wizard, she’s a soldier, and she plans to do what soldiers do best: follow her commander into the fray, and achieve his objectives.

“Always so stoic,” Maul purrs. “Come now, Kast, together you and I will make _history_. Surely you can muster some excitement for that?”

In all honesty, this is starting to sound more and more like a job for an archeologist, not a Mandalorian. _Satine_ would certainly be excited by this, she thinks. The former Duchess would likely be delighted by the academic ramifications of getting to explore a long-abandoned Sith world. In spite of what Maul had said in the palace, Rook had been hoping – _expecting_ – for him to reveal something more tangible for her to assist with. Some enemy to defeat, some obstacle to crush. She stares into the slowly cooling tea sitting before her, and keeps her expression clean of emotion as she says, “it’s a privilege, my lord.”

Maul does not look especially convinced, and she wonders how much of her emotional state he is capable of reading. Not her exact thoughts perhaps, but surely he senses her reservation. “It’ll be glorious,” he says. “You’ll thank me for this opportunity soon enough, I assure you.” He finishes the rest of his tea, and stands. “The route I’ve charted will have us at Ziost in approximately six hours’ time. I would recommend getting some rest in the interim. I will wake you once we have arrived in orbit.”

The chance to get some sleep is certainly tempting, and Rook finds herself stifling a yawn. It was an early morning, and at this point she’s been up for longer than she can usually stay sharp for without the aid of stims or adrenals. Some rest would do her well. “Sure,” she says. “I can crash here, if that’s acceptable for you.” Rook’s mastered the art of falling asleep on any available surface area at this point, and this chair certainly won’t top the list of the Worst Places she’s had to grab shut-eye. If she puts her helmet on and turns off the HUD and visual display, she’ll have the extra luxury of getting to rest in perfect darkness.

Maul, however, doesn’t seem thrilled with her proposition – if anything, he looks somewhat offended. “I have quarters available. Follow me.”

She grabs her helmet and obeys, trailing after him as he moves back into the primary wing of the ship, stopping in front of the first of the sealed doors. With a touch, it slides open, revealing a small room with a sleeping mat in the center and several badly abused training droids shoved into the corner. “My exercise room, normally,” Maul explains. “I… assume it will be sufficient?”

Rook flashes him a quick, appreciative grin. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”

Maul leaves, and the door seals shut behind him, leaving her alone with only the spectral blue trails of hyperspace floating by the viewport to keep her company. She admits to herself that while this pseudo-vacation is certainly _not_ what she would’ve chosen for herself, it is refreshing to get away from Sundari for a little. She takes a deep breath, letting herself relish the sensation of being utterly free from the burden of galactic responsibilities. She had started to appreciate certain aspects of leadership, but a part of her misses the strange freedom that comes from not having to think too hard about her purpose in the cosmos. For the longest time, her purpose was straightforward: serve Mandalore. And while that _does_ remain her purpose, it is now up to her to decide exactly what that entails, and what the best path to achieving that goal is.

She keeps her armor on as she lowers herself to the sleeping mat. The pad is stiff and rigid – exactly how she prefers it. She places her helmet down on the floor beside her, and closes her eyes, counting nerfs until she feels her thoughts start to drift.

* * *

She is awoken by the blare of alarms, and Maul’s hand shaking her shoulder. She blinks sleep from her eyes and jumps up, instinctively reaching down to grab her helmet with one hand, and pull out her blaster with the other. “What is it?”

“Come with me,” Maul demands, and she jogs behind him until they have reached the cockpit. Her initial assessment that it was cramped was apparently well-founded, she is forced to squeeze herself behind the pilot’s seat and duck her head to avoid bumping against any of the jumbled cables dangling from the ceiling. The design of his ship is alien to her – she’s never flown any craft quite like it, and she’s unfamiliar with approximately half of the instruments on display. She looks outwards – past the transparisteel to the space beyond. They’ve dropped out of hyperspace, and before them, rapidly approaching, is an unremarkable grayish planet that is covered in whirling green storm-clouds. Ziost, she assumes.

From the pilot’s seat, Maul is growling something unintelligible, his hands a blur of motion over his controls. “Your sensors are going haywire,” Rook tells him, quickly scanning the blinking displays splayed under Maul’s fingers.

“I am _aware_ ,” he hisses back, hurrying to disengage the autopilot. He takes manual control as Ziost swarms before them, obscuring the backdrop of stars. “I can’t even detect a safe area to land. _Nothing_ is working. I don’t know _why_.” His eyes drift closed, and his hands cease their motions, resting limply on the control panel.

“My lord!” Rook gasps, alarmed.

“Quiet,” he snaps, his eyes still shut even as the planet engulfs the viewport. “I’m going to try and tap into the source of my visions – let that guide me to my destination.”

Rook silences the part of her mind currently running through a series of worst-case scenarios involving burning atmospheric entries and crash-landings into the sides of mountains, and braces herself as best she can between the narrow walls of the cockpit. Whatever lingering sleepiness had been with her before is a long-lost memory- right now adrenaline’s got her more wired then a fat line of Pyke spice. 

Meanwhile Maul, somehow the picture of serenity, has navigated the ship around to the southern hemisphere of the planet and has begun to approach the upper atmosphere. It is a miracle that their entry is as smooth as it is – the ship bucks and rattles as it hits turbulence, but otherwise it cuts cleanly towards land, spearing through dark clouds heavy with rain. Lightning spits across the sky, illuminating a strange, jagged world covered in mist and crumbling structures that might once have been cities. Before her very eyes they seem to change – shifting into brilliant, pyramids made of steeped white stone. She blinks, but their ship is still travelling too fast and they are gone when she looks again. 

Maul whizzes across the horizon, and then suddenly slows the ship, turning it to land in an outcropping that shines with golden light. The engines quiet to a low hum as the ship touches the ground, and then deactivates entirely. Maul’s eyes snap back open, and he exhales. “The force serves me.”

“Fuck,” Rook gasps out, not entirely believing that she emerged from that hellish emergency descent intact.

Something close to a laugh escapes Maul, and he rises from his chair, pushing past her to exit the ship, summoning his robes around him with the force as he does. Rook shoves her helmet on, but whatever issue had affected the sensors is screwing with her HUD – the only thing her display is showing is exactly what’s in front of her visor. She exits the ship beside Maul, one hand resting on the grip of her blaster. She’s not exactly sure _what_ she saw when Maul was busy flying blind across the planet, and she has no clue how she’d even begin to explain it, but _whatever_ it was wasn’t _natural_. She doesn’t trust this place, this empty, dead wasteland of a world.

The ground under their feet is surprisingly soft, and Rook scans the environment for potential threats as they step forward. Around them is formless mist, uniformly gray and thick in the air. A dozen paces away, however, is the golden glow she noticed from overhead – although she cannot distinguish anything more than a soft throb of light.

She looks behind her, and freezes. She looks again. “Maul…” she says slowly.

Maul turns back to her, impatient. “What?” 

“Where did our ship go?”

For the first time since they have embarked on this journey, Rook sees Maul’s eyes fill, briefly, with fear, and his face shifts into an expression of doubt, as if it is starting to dawn on him that he might be out of his depths here. He shakes his head, as if trying to physically dislodge any misgivings, and clenches his jaw. “We continue forward,” he decides. 

Rook stares at the empty spot where their ship – their only means of not just leaving this planet _but also_ communicating with the galaxy beyond – used to be. They are so wildly fucked, she realizes. She murmurs a quick prayer and then trudges after Maul, following him to the place of golden light.

When they arrive, they stumble into another world entirely. Cold, golden light encompasses everything – the ground, the sky, and all the spaces in between. There is an eerie silence that has settled around them as well, all the ambient sounds of wind or distant rain leeched away so entirely Rook finds herself doubting if they ever existed to begin with. And this _would_ scare her… _should_ scare her, but instead….

She feels, in her mind, as if she’s floating naked in water that perfectly matches her body temperature – the sort of tranquility that comes from the utter absence of any stimulation or sensation. She guesses another sentient might describe this feeling as… _peaceful_. But to her, _peace_ is synonymous with _victory_ – it is the contentment and unadulterated joy that comes in the wake of a hard-won battle. Peace is the blood-stained glory at the end of a war, not this… emptiness lulling her into emotional catatonia.

“What is this?” she hears herself ask Maul, the words echoing strangely in the muffled golden space that stretches between them.

Maul’s expression is as blank as she’s ever seen it. “This, Kast, is a taste of the light side of the force.” His face spasms as if he wants to frown, but has forgotten how. “I knew the force was twisted on this planet, but I did not expect to find any light here. I… did not expect a great many things, as it turns out. I believe I owe you an apology, Kast. It was selfish of me to bring you here.”

She feels a dulled, distant horror stir inside the pit of her stomach. Something must _really_ be wrong, if _Maul_ is apologizing. They have to get off of this world. Screw force secrets and ancient powers. But try as she might, she can’t muster anything beyond a faint sense of urgency. “Is this what the Jedi feel?” Rook asks. She wants to shiver- she feels the urge to do so slither through her muscles and over soft tissue, but her body resists any motions save for the most vital or deliberate.

“No,” Maul says. “But this is what they strive for.”

Rook summons all her resolve, and moves forward. Her progress is slow, as if she’s wading through molasses, but she pushes onwards, taking Maul’s hand in her own and pulling him along with her. This cannot last forever, she knows. This must end… eventually.

And so it does. But when the golden light eventually dims and disappears, they do not see the gray mists of before. The world has changed again. Overhead the sky flashes with lightning and surrounding them is a dark, arid desert that stretches out as far she can see. The sand under their tread is cracked and lifeless, and small skeletons litter the path before them. The terror that had been absent back in the place of stillness has returned with a vengeance, and Rook feels her breath shuddering out of her.

Just when she’s convinced things can’t possibly get any weirder, or worse, Maul raises a hand in warning, stopping her in her tracks. “I sense a presence,” he hisses to Rook. Then, louder, he demands, “show yourself!” A bone dry breeze rustles towards them, and faintly she hears a skittering sound. “Who is there, hiding like a coward in the darkness?” her Mand’alor snarls.

Cold, mocking laughter answers them. **_Darkness itself_.**

A massive bolt of lightning forks overhead, spilling white light across the expanse of the desert. In the distance, _something_ black and sleek bubbles and solidifies into a humanoid shape, approaching them on inhumanely swift feet. In a flash of red, Maul has activated his newly-forged saber, and both blades shine crimson in the shadows. Rook takes a defensive stance beside him, ready to follow his lead.

The figure approaches, until Rook can make out their shape more clearly. A young Nautolan female stands before them, her large, liquid black eyes fixed entirely on Maul. The Sith himself is deathly still beside Rook, and his face is a mask of horror. “Kilindi,” he gasps out, a shudder going through him. “This… cannot be.”

The girl spreads her arms open in challenge, and her lips split into a bloody, red-tinged grin. “Observe!” she cries out, her voice booming across the desert. “The once-great Sith Lord!”

“Who is this?” Rook hisses to Maul.

He is trembling slightly, and she finds herself surprised when he answers her at all. “She isn’t real,” he says lowly. “She is dead.”

“A ghost, then?”

Maul’s eyes widen as if he had not considered that possibility. “I… I do not know. I… no. This is a trick of the force. It _must_ be.”

The Nautolan is suddenly only an arm’s length away from them, close enough that the red glow of Maul’s lightsaber reflects off of her skin. “Was it worth it, _my friend_?” she snarls, sharp teeth glistening dangerously as they flash in her mouth. She gestures to a smoldering wound in her midsection. “Look at you now. An exiled Sith. A master of _nothing._ What did killing me _win_ for you, in the end?”

Before Rook has time to react, Maul jumps towards the creature, his lightsaber a blinding whirl of red destruction. He cannot seem to hit her; she is too nimble, dancing away from every attack as if she is in his mind, seeing every choice he makes before he has made it. She retreats, quick-footed across the graveyard of a desert and he pursues her, chasing her across bones and dust.

Rook watches them fight, her mind still working on processing what _exactly_ is happening, but before she can move to assist, the girl is somehow in front of her as well. Her doppelgänger continues to toy with Maul in the distance, and the girl frowns up at Rook. ”Soldier,” she greets coldly. “You are force-blind.”

“What of it?” Rook snaps. Her hand, already resting on her blaster, moves to yank it out of its holster, and she aims it squarely at the Nautolan. She has no ties to this being- and girl or not, ghost or not, she will not hesitate to pull the trigger.

“Your fear is pushed down quite far,” the girl muses, unconcerned with the blaster trained on her. “You do not use it as he does.” She examines Rook, and then steps forward, letting her chest touch the muzzle of Rook’s blaster. Her image warps, her features running together like spilled ink. It is not long before her whole body has lost its original form, and by the time Rook can make sense of what it is she’s _seeing_ at all, the creature is wearing another body. She looks like Bo-Katan, vicious and blood-soaked and proud. Bo leans forward, over the blaster still jammed between her breasts, and kisses Rook. She tastes like annihilation, like the sweetest destruction. She pulls away enough to whisper in Rook’s ear. “But you cannot escape,” she promises softly. “The fear will find you, too.

“Now watch,” it murmurs. “As I undo a man.” It drifts towards Maul, and the Nautolan he hunts disappears into smoke. Maul rounds on the approaching entity, and when it is by his side it no longer looks like Bo-Katan. Instead, it wears a stooped body, one clad in night-dark robes. Its face is in shadow. Even from where she is, Rook can see as the rage on Maul’s face transforms into absolute terror. He opens his mouth as if to scream, but no sound emerges, and he freezes like a prey animal caught in the gaze of a serpent. Rook runs towards him, but the sand at her feet is suddenly as sticky as tar, and as hard as she tries she cannot dislodge her boots from it.

She is forced to bear witness as the hunched, wizened being shoots an arc of blue lightning towards her lord, striking him full in the chest and flinging him backwards. Smoke rises from Maul’s charred robes, but he pushes himself off the ground and casts a fearful look in the direction of the being slowly approaching him. Maul turns and runs, disappearing into the shadows, and it is only when he is lost to her that the tar around her feet releases, being washed away by a black, shimmering liquid that rises from the sand, covering it completely.

“This is so fucked,” Rook mutters to herself. “Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the _fuck_ am I supposed to do?” _Maul_ was supposed to be her guide on this perverse Sith world, her anchor, her commander. She will find him, she decides. It is the only recourse left to her, anyway. Her comms are dead, her HUD is still down, and their ship is still MIA. She re-holsters her blaster, and concentrates on the mission at hand. She has one task and one task alone, and she will achieve it. She does not give herself the option of entertaining any doubt. Beneath her, small pinpricks of light illuminate the water, likely some alien bacteria or plant. She sniffs in disdain, thankful that her armor is sealed and protected against such contaminants.

She walks forward, in the direction she saw Maul flee towards. Dark water continues to lap at her armored boots, and as she trudges forward she notices that what she had mistaken for bioluminescent flora is anything but. It is the stars themselves that spill under her tread, a sea of them – twinkling brightly in the soft, waving tide. She is surrounded on all sides by the vast sum of eternity.

Faint sounds seem to surround her, distant sibilant hissing that begins to coalesce into chanting, in a language that Rook has never learned, cannot remember ever consciously hearing… but somehow feels intimately familiar to her, as if a lullaby from a past life. Shadows in the water start to _writhe_ under her, and though her boots are still covering her feet, she feels something… squirming and worming between her toes.

She squeezes her eyes shut, ignoring it. She cannot trust anything here, not even her own senses. It is a trick, she reminds herself desperately. A trick from the force, as Maul said.

She takes her helmet off, suddenly, illogically, desperate to breathe in unfiltered air. She clips the helmet to her side and sucks in a breath, before dry heaving over the water. She presses her hands against her knees and wills herself to stand. _Go forward_ she thinks. _Find Maul._

When she has risen, there is a thing across from her, waving cheerily in greeting. Either the entity from before or something akin to it, she assumes. This one is wearing Saxon’s face, and its eyes sparkle brighter than those of the man it attempts to imitate, glistening as white and coldly brilliant as the stars beneath her boots.

“My friend,” it says in Saxon’s voice, and it bridges the distance between them in the blink of an eye. Its hand rises to cup her now-exposed face, its thumb stroking her cheek with an overly-warm intimacy that would be alien to her brother-in-arms. She leans into the touch, tamping down on her instinct to recoil in revulsion. This creature smells like decay – it smells like a bloated corpse left too long under the sun. It continues to stroke her face, and she closes her eyes in what she hopes is a convincing display of weary woman resigned to whatever comfort she can receive, as she carefully slides the darksaber off her hip. She pushes herself even closer towards the creature, wrapping her arms around it in an embrace. It moves with her, and as it does she plunges the void-black blade into its side, slicing up in a clean motion. 

If it truly were a man, she would have disemboweled it. But it is not, so instead it continues to stand, looking down at the weapon in her hand as if faintly amused. Rook is not amused. With a bellow, she slits its throat, and then stabs it twice in the chest, before delivering a kick to its gut. It falls to the ground and _finally_ it lets out a wet gurgle, but when it looks up at her again it is her husband’s face it wears. “My love,” it begs, pitiful. Tears fall down the hauntingly familiar curves of its cheeks.

She shivers in horror. This is too much for her, too far beyond her capacity to understand. Her mind was built and molded for the physical world, for fighting and strategizing and fucking. It was not meant for these mystical enigmas and strange Sith dreams that eat away at her reality. She cannot find her center in this twisted place, for every point that she would normally anchor herself to for stability has been lost. She stands alone on the edge of the unknown, and she knows that she risks losing herself to dread and terror, as the creature shaped as Bo swore would be her fate. She forces herself to retreat into the familiar, grounding comfort of anger, and she spits on the whimpering entity wearing her husband’s form. “How _dare_ you try and use him against me,” she growls. “How _dare_ you think me soft enough that his face would sway me.”

Her not-husband looks up at her with limpid eyes, and then with a smile shrugs off its human skin, its true form slipping and slithering out of discarded flesh. It has a bipedal shape, two arms, two legs, but it’s as slick and dark as spilled oil, and stars crawl across its skin. Its eyes shine with a dense, crushing heat, like the core of a sun about to go supernova. Its face splits into a wicked smile that displays rows and rows of needle-sharp teeth, and in its gaze she sees something alien and infinite. There is nothing she recognizes there, and dread settles heavy in her belly as she realizes that this is a creature beyond reason, beyond bargaining. It has watched stars blink out of existence, and someday it will watch the entire universe tear itself apart in some final, miasmic heave.

“Your people are a blight on existence,” the creature murmurs. “You create nothing. You only take. You plunder and pillage and conquer. You act as all parasites do – feasting on the efforts of others until you have drained them dry. You sweep war across the stars like a plague, and then you steal the babies you have orphaned, replenishing your ranks, creating more soldiers, more parasites.” It peers at her with luminous eyes. “You scramble in the dirt for meaning, for some kind of purchase. You rut away like desperate animals. Do not think you are any different because you were given that blood-touched blade. You call yourself King but you are still here on the whims of your master, chasing after his glory, his power. The most you can _ever_ hope for are that scraps of his victories will fall neatly into your lap.” Something resembling human emotion flares to life in its star-shine eyes, and she recognize it as _rage_. “You don’t deserve that weapon.”

It straightens, the air shimmering around it like a mirage. When it resolves, the creature is in Saxon’s shape again. “Who are you to be King?” he snarls at her. “I haven’t forgotten who you are: little Rook Kast, who _I_ had to protect when Vizsla first recruited you.” His face contorts with disgust as he stalks towards her. This feels more real than before, Rook thinks frantically, stumbling back a step. This feels like _Saxon_ this time, not just a hollow imitation of him.

“You didn’t even fight for that blade,” he sneers. “It was _handed_ to you. Why are you our ruler? You aren’t the strongest, or the fastest, or even the most cunning.” He spreads his arms out and stares at her with naked contempt. “I am! _I_ should be Mand’alor, not _you._ ”

He rushes at her suddenly, a wall of muscle impacting against her. She’s knocked into the water, and as her back splashes against the starry sea the black liquid suddenly recedes, bleeding away until they both lie on a ground of blighted dirt. She struggles against him, but he has her pinned, and she knows from past experience that once he’s gotten her into this position trying to escape is futile. Normally, at this point in a bout she’d be tapping out and he’d be releasing her- reaching out a hand to help her up, all violence forgotten. But this is no bout, and _this_ Saxon shows no inclination of pulling off of her. Instead, he pushes her deeper into the ground, and she feels the cold press of his codpiece grind into her. His breath is warm against her neck, as if in a twisted mockery of their love-making. “No Mand’alor at all, I see,” he says smugly, gazing into her eyes with a look of almost lustful triumph. “Pathetic,” he murmurs in her ear, in a tone that is mockingly gentle, and for a moment his voice sounds like Pre Vizsla’s, like Satine’s, like Bo-Katan’s. Rook resists the urge to wriggle in the creature’s grasp, refusing to give it the satisfaction. She keeps herself still, and pulls in a steadying breath. _Fear is a chemical impulse_ she reminds herself sternly. It can be mastered, like any other emotion. She will not succumb. Her heartbeat slows to a calmer tempo, and above her Saxon blinks down in indignant rage, his lip curling.

“You really believe you can save yourself?” he asks. “I know you, Rook. You’re barely comfortable _thinking_ on your own, without a superior to tell you exactly _how_.”

There is very little _funny_ about this situation, but Rook forces herself to laugh at the entity hovering above her. “You don’t know me at all,” she says simply. “Saxon does.”

“I am him,” the thing above her insists, grinding down onto her again, his smirk widening into a licentious grin. “In every way that matters.” He runs his gaze down her body, licking his lips. “And I know _you_ in every way that matters.”

Rook ignores the blatant attempt to get under her skin, convinced now that the creature must surely be growing desperate to unsettle her, if it is going for threats of this nature now. “You can’t be,” she says. “Saxon loves me.” Her eyes narrow up at the thing wearing his face. “You are _not_ my friend.” She pauses, and commands her voice to harden. “And it doesn’t matter if I _deserve_ to be Mand’alor or not. I _am_ Mand’alor.”

The creature’s expression contorts with pure, primal hatred. “I am fear made manifest. You cannot _ever_ rid yourself of _fear_.”

“I don’t have to rid myself of it,” Rook snarls up at the creature, matching its look of hate with one of her own. “I only have to rise above it.”

The false Saxon hisses like an animal, and then skitters away. Its skin has begun to fester and slough off, its flesh shriveling until it’s diminished in size – looking barely larger than a tooka. Finally, with a wet slurp and a shriek of terror, its body collapses in on itself like a dying star.

Rook gasps, and rolls over, curling around herself in the dirt. It had taken every drop of will in her body to control her fear long enough to banish the entity. As she had begun to suspect, its shape and power were being fed by _her_ – her mind helping to give it form as well as strength. She kneads her gloved hands into the ground, struggling to grasp ahold of that will once again. She takes her darksaber, and curls her hands around it, staring down at the inactivated hilt, reminding herself of who she is. And of what her mission is.

No man left behind.

In a swift motion she picks herself up, sheathing the darksaber and starting out again into the dark. She does not know if the creature will return for her, and she has no interest in finding out.

 _Keep moving_ she tells herself. _One foot ahead of the next. Don’t give yourself time to think, or be afraid._ She keeps her eyes trained on her boots, on the rhythm of her steps. 

She loses track of time as she continues to walk, but eventually the barren soil gives way to red, finely-grained sand and she sees tracks along the dunes in front of her, the footprints far apart from each other, as if their owner had been chased off with a demon at their heels. 

_Maul_.

Rook hurries forward, following the trail and hoping she is not too late. After a bit, the footprints begin to get closer together and the sand around them grows more disturbed – Maul’s natural coordination falling prey to exhaustion and fear. This is unlike him, Rook thinks. Maul is not the sort of man who succumbs to his own fear – she has seen him grab hold of it and transform it into a weapon to be leveled against his enemies. But she remembers the Nautolan shape the creature wore, how she had said of Rook’s fear: _you do not use it as he does_.

This was a trap primed and set for a force-user, Rook realizes. _For a dark-sider._

Finally, she sees a lone shape against the red sands, a huddled figure with a face shadowed by their hood. Dim alarm rings in the back of her mind, warning her that this could very well be another, insidious trap, but she knows she cannot heed logic or caution now. Her desperation propels her the last few paces forward, and the figure looks up at her. _Maul_. But she does not have time to be relieved. Abruptly, he shrinks back like a wounded animal, peeling back his lips in a feral snarl. His eyes are glazed with a fevered shine, and he trembles with raw energy. He is an exposed nerve, a man reduced to a single, primitive impulse. Survive.

Maul’s eyes glow in the dark like suns, gleaming with a deranged intensity, and he lets out a peal of unhinged laughter, his hands moving to squeeze around the sides of his head. Rook has never seen him like this – uncontrolled, hanging onto sanity by a fraying thread. It frightens her, in the same deep, awful way as when, as a child, she saw her father cry for the first time. “I see the truth again,” Maul is giggling. “The darkness is coming for me. And it will show no mercy… no… mercy is a lie….” His words start to slip together into a barely coherent string of sounds and broken syllables, until Rook gives up trying to decipher their meaning.

She approaches closer, and with a deliberate slowness, she extends out her hand in the same way she would to a skittish tooka. She pushes past her fear and keeps her tone level and calm as she says, “Lord Maul. Come back to me.”

Some welcome trace of lucidity creeps into his eyes, and his expression darkens with realization. “Kast?” His voice is more hesitant then she has heard before.

“It is I, my lord,” she replies, her own voice growing rough with discomfort. She does not know how to be soothing- if that is even what Maul would respond to. She sits on the ground beside him, noting that his lightsaber at least is safely secured to his belt.

“I am pleased… you survived,” he grinds out, and he digs his hands into the sand as if struggling to remind himself that he sits on solid ground.

“This place…” Rook starts. “Is this the dark side? The things I have seen….”

As if on cue, snakelike whispers around them begin to multiply, and Maul’s lip curls back up into a snarl. “In a way,” he rasps. “But the darkness is perverted here. Taken to its extreme. Just as the light was, in that oasis we encountered. And there is… a presence here. A sentience. It encroaches on my thoughts.” He presses his hand to his temple, baring his teeth.

“The creatures we encountered,” Rook guesses. “But I did not think they were truly alive.”

“No, you fool,” he snaps, glaring at her. She does not flinch away, but some wounded emotion must surely flicker through her aura, for with a weary sigh Maul inhales and then tries again, softer. “Those were force manifestations. Summoned into existence by our fears. But there is someone here who is… or was… _alive_. A man or woman exiled or trapped here. I think it is their will, or some aspect of their unconsciousness, that is influencing reality and the force to this extent.”

So there is an enemy to destroy after all, Rook thinks bitterly, resenting her earlier, naïve desire to have a physical threat to battle against. The universe has a cruel sense of irony.

“I cannot do this for much longer,” Maul growls. The strain is evident on his face, and beads of sweat have begun to accumulate around his brow. “The force is too strong here. And I feel the entity battering away at my will.”

“Follow me,” Rook coaxes, rising and offering a hand to help pull him up.

She will lead him to the light-drenched place they found before, the place of Absolute Stillness. That quiet, desolate sanctuary will be their refuge, until such a time Maul has regained his strength. It is a good plan, one she can be proud of. It is a shame it never comes to pass. For even as she tugs Maul after her down the dunes, the grains of sand start to roll away from them, until the ground is flat, gold-veined marble. She sees in the distance, tall, looming shadows of massive pyramids – the same kind that she saw in their initial approach of the planet. And before them a throne rises from the marble, a misshapen block of unpolished obsidian. And sitting there, on the throne, is a warrior clad in red armor with burning, malevolent eyes. He stretches out a hand glittering with jeweled rings, and something freezing cold rushes through her blood. This is no illusion, no trick of the force. _This_ is the true monster at the center of this nightmare.

“Is it not still proper to kneel before your betters?” the man utters, and Rook finds herself collapsing to her knees. Maul wobbles on his feet for a second longer, but then loses the fight as well, falling besides her.

“Who are you?” Maul hisses. “Which Sith are you?”

“I am Exar Kun,” the man intones. “Do they still know me in the galaxy? Do they still speak of my destruction of this world?”

Maul’s expression twists in confusion. “The Sith Lord who blighted Ziost… died here in failure. An old man.”

“I tethered my essence here,” the Sith says, his teeth gleaming white as he smiles. “And I present myself before you as I wish to be remembered. In the prime of my life.” His fingers rap against the armrest of his throne. “You were supposed to be more broken at this point. But no matter. Your mind will eventually crumble, and your body will soon be mine.”

“ _Supposed_ to be? Did you bring me here?” Maul hisses.

His face alights with hunger. “Do not fret, alien. When I leave this place wearing your skin, I will do you the favor of making your old master suffer greatly, as I take his Empire for my own.”

“This is not possible,” Maul says, his voice thick with disbelief.

“No? That holocron in your possession….”

Numbly, Maul reaches into his robes, and pulls out the object. It is shining brighter than it did on the ship, as blindingly red as a ruby. “I did not take this off the ship,” Maul murmurs, as if in a daze.

“But you did,” the Sith assures him. “Because I desired it. _I_ made that holocron. It is my creation, designed to hold a portion of my will. And with it, I spoke to you through your dreams.” His voice, once possessed of a youthful timbre, transforms until it is so dry and parched that is painful to hear. The sound scrapes through Rook’s ears, as rough as sandpaper. “And unknowing, you fell into my trap. The obedient little Nightbrother slave, even now.” He turns his terrible, aching gaze to Rook next, and she feels her insides curl under his regard. The cold chill she felt before has returned tenfold, and it invades her body, shooting ice into the marrows of her bones. “You did surprise me by bringing a servant.” His eyes narrow in shrewd calculation. “Is this woman your slave… or your master? I know something of your Nightbrother practices.”

“She,” Maul pants. “Is a Mandalorian.”

Those bleeding coal eyes turn to her again, and this time they are filled with a cool appraisal. “I led Mandalorian armies across the galaxy once,” he tells her, his voice a ghostly whisper. “Discard this broken half-Sith, soldier. Serve me, and I will let you command legions in my honor. I will have us remake star systems for my new Empire.”

Rook sees it then suddenly – the vision projected into her mind: her, in armor of gold and sable, leading her brothers and sisters across a myriad of worlds, conquering and plundering as the Mando’ade had done back in the days of the Old Republic. Their bloodied birthright, handed to them again by a Sith. She sees herself return to a black palace erected above Coruscant, her ships laden with tribute for her master. And she watches as this version of herself kneels at Exar Kun’s feet, and he smiles down at her, his molten eyes bright with triumph, her darksaber resting on his hip.

“I see it in your heart, Mandalorian,” the ancient Sith hisses. “You crave a master. This broken Sith has left you bereft of one, adrift and purposeless. Swear yourself to me, and you will know the quiet comfort of subjugation again. You have my word.”

Rook’s thoughts start to race frantically, her mind turning, plotting. The plan solidifies, leaving her with a sense of cold resolve, and she looks up at Exar Kun, forcing herself not to break his gaze. “I swear myself to you.”

She hears Maul snarl in wordless anger beside her, but she ignores him, concentrating entirely on Exar Kun as he smiles. “Then prove yourself to me, Mandalorian. Retrieve my holocron from the Nightbrother, and bring it to me. And then I shall take his body, and _we_ shall bring the galaxy to its knees.”

He releases whatever dark power was holding her steady on the ground, and she dives at Maul, tackling him down and grappling desperately for the holocron. She is not his equal in combat, but he is hardly at his best – his reactions dulled from the effort of fighting to keep his mind free of Exar Kun’s influence. She pulls her helmet off her belt and hits him with it, and his head snaps back, blood dripping from his lip. His fingers momentarily slacken around the object, and she peels it from his hand, darting back before he can move to reclaim it.

“ _Yes_ ,” Exar Kun breathes, rapturous. “Oh you are lovely, little warrior. We are so close to victory… bring it to me. You will be well-rewarded for this.”

Rook nods, and slowly steps forward, extending the holocron with one hand. Exar Kun’s gaze is utterly fixed on it, and his lips part in wonder. She stretches it towards him, and he stares at it, rapt, and when Rook is certain his attention belongs entirely to the holocron, she takes the darksaber into her other hand, and activates it. And in a clean motion, she sweeps the blade around, slicing the holocron in half.

Both sections fall to the ground, drained of their red light and made ordinary by their destruction – nothing more than shattered crystals. Exar Kun lets out a scream that seems to split the heavens, and his throne and the marble underneath start to crumble. He staggers towards her, no longer young and beautiful, but old and emaciated, his face twisted with rage. “You have no idea what you’ve done!” he cries. “I would’ve given your people the galaxy!”

“Mandalorians are not slaves,” she growls. “And tell me, Sith… don’t you kneel before your betters?”

He lunges towards her, his fingers extended like talons, but Rook does not move and he collapses to the ground, his form fading away. “ _You are nothing,_ ” he whispers. _“I… am Exar Kun_.”

“The galaxy has forgotten you in your absence,” Rook tells him. “In the end, you are nothing at all.” 

And with a wail, Exar Kun disappears, and the world around them shifts once again – returning to gray mist and cloudy skies overhead, and best of all… the dark outline of Maul’s ship in the distance.

Rook deactivates her blade, and returns to Maul, who has risen. She is pleased to see that his eyes are clear and free of pain – no longer having to fight to sustain his sanity amidst Exar Kun’s mental assaults. He sucks blood from his split lip and stares at her. “How did you know that would work?”

Rook shrugs. “He said the holocron contained some of his power and his will. Figured it couldn’t hurt to destroy the thing. At the least, it didn’t sound like he could take your body without it.” She looks at his bloodied mouth again, and grimaces. “Sorry for hitting you in the face.”

Maul does not seem concerned. “The ruse served its purpose.” He pauses. “Thank you, Kast.” He looks around at the thick, swirling mists surrounding them and lets out a joyless laugh. “I admit, this was far from what I had in mind when I brought you along.”

Rook smiles, and in the wake of their victory she feels a sense of peace settling over her. “We survived, didn’t we?”

* * *

The ship sensors now fully restored, Maul is able to take them off of Ziost and out of its orbit. It is only when the blue of hyperspace flows past the viewports, however, that Rook lets herself fully relax, dropping into a chair and kicking her legs up on the holo-table. “Next time,” she insists. “We’ll do some more research in advance.”

Maul sits across from her, and his eyes glitter with yellow amusement. “Will you be happy to return to Sundari?” he asks. “I’m sure your people miss their Mand’alor.”

Rook glances down at her darksaber, giving it a contemplative look. She has resented its presence for so long, but somehow in the short time since she used it to slay Exar Kun, it has felt more comfortable on her hip then it ever did before. It feels like a natural extension of herself at last. “As horrible as that was, I’ll admit it was nice to get away for a bit,” she says. “But yes, it will be good to see them again. Will you be staying with us for long, Lord Maul?”

“Perhaps a few days,” he allows. “But in the meantime Kast, I heard of your triumph on Jedha. Let me offer my congratulations.”

She grins. “I have plans to crack open a bottle from that moon, when I return. Can I count on you to join me?”

Maul steeples his fingers together and gives her a sly look. “Let us make a transaction out of it,” he suggests. “I will partake in drinks with you, _if_ you share the stories of your victory over the Imperials.”

“Deal,” Rook laughs. She leans further back in the chair, and begins to retell for him the highlights of the siege of Jedha as their ship cleaves through hyperspace back to her home. 


End file.
